hsr_fan wrote:After riding the Acela Express from Boston to New York on Sunday, I have to say, 150 mph feels like what rail travel should be like! Even 100 mph seems slow. It's a shame that NJ Transit and every other commuter agency in this country insists on being stuck in the 80 mph and under rut while the technology exists for much higher speeds. If this country were more like Japan, people living in places like Bay Head or Port Jervis would probably be looking at a reasonable 1 hour commute or less!
You have to remember not only grade crossings, but the fact that a commuter train, by definition, makes frequent stops, sometimes as little as a mile apart. You can't compare this to the French TGV or German ICE trains which are long-distance intercity trains which have time to accelerate to high speed and stay there. The Japanese built a brand new right of way for the Bullet trains, and nothing else uses those tracks. By contrast, we're operating on an old infrastructure with 19th-Century alignments (read frequent curves). And since the northeast megalopolis is virtually fully developed and built up, there isn't room to construct new, arrow-straight rail rights of way, even if the money to do so was there, which it isn't. Can you imagine the litigation by property owners whose property lies in the path of a proposed new high-speed line, trying to get more money? Or the ornery soul who refuses to sell and has to be evicted by force, with all the attendant publicity, TV cameras, etc.?
80 mph is, I feel , fine for commuter trains when the alternative is to crawl along at 10 mph in traffic jams on parallel roads.
